THE PEACEMAKER (1997)
starring:  George Clooney, Nicole Kidman, Rene Medvesek, Alexander Baluev, Marcel Iures
directed by:  Mimi Leder                    produced by:  Branko Lustig, Walter Parkes
written by: Michael Schiffer

 

 

 

 

               WHAT IT'S ABOUT

Clooner is one of America's top military operatives. Kidman is America's leading nuclear expert.  Together they have to find a stolen nuclear warhead that has been stolen from Russia before it destroys the United Nations offices in New York City.

 

                     MY THOUGHTS
(CAUTION!!!  SPOILERS!!!)

  I did not want to see this film at all when I first sat down to see it. I only saw it because 1) My Dad rented it.  2) This is the first film ever by Dreamworks SKG.  I had to see it because of reason number 2.  Dreamworks SKG was created to make films that were breaking edge and to move away from the bigger film companies and make want they want to make.  What with the heads of this company being who they are (Spielberg, Katzenberg, and Geffen) Dreamworks SKG has veered into multimedia and music and movies almost all at once!  Their future films include PRINCE OF EGYPT which will be their first animated film and trust me, it promises to destroy the boundaries of all future animated films!  But I digress.

PEACEMAKER prooved to be much better than I anticipated.  Clooney was cool and semi-believable however everyone in this film was 2 dimensional. No characterization of any real value.  You don't care who dies, as long as they get that nuke before it goes off. (And yes. It DOES go off in NYC -but with a surprise that I don't know is believeable or not, since I am no nuclear phyicist (hey, I'm in retail and I do web pages and I write. What more do you want?) 

The film had some really good moments of tension and excellent chase scenes.  The direction was good however a couple of the characters were difficult to follow.   Their atempts at characterization were flawed and needed more salt to give them flavor.

 

                            MY RATING

RENT THIS FILM.

Notice there is not exclamation point? :-)  It prooved to be an interesting film at least and if you are a Spielberg fan then rent this so you can see what his latest venture has given us.  The special effects are excellent and Clooney prooved to be better than what I've seen of his BATMAN.  I still think his character from FROM DUSK TIL DAWN was his best to date.